Jimmy Garoppolo is Definitely Not Ready to Replace Tom Brady's Social Media Greatness
By Kyle Koster
Jimmy Garoppolo’s Instagram account posted a farewell message to the New England Patriots at 4 a.m. in the morning. It is reportedly either a prank or a hoax, according to plugged-in NFL reporters. The post has been up for a few hours because Garoppolo is probably asleep or locked out of his account. The situation has created a media frenzy, not unlike when our president sends out his early-morning tweets. This, my friends, is life in 2017.
Big picture, this is a small hiccup on the Patriots’ inevitable march to another Super Bowl title. It does, however, raise some serious concerns about Garoppolo’s readiness to step in and fill Tom Brady’s expansive social media footprint.
Do you think the five-time Super Bowl winner would get hacked in the middle of the night? Fat chance. All Brady does is hit home runs. From fake suspect boards to gnarly ski jumps to Throwback Thursday to fire focus in the chill zone, everything he posts sizzles. Garoppolo has a long way to go to eliminate the current gulfs in both quality and account security.
Perhaps this keeps Brady playing until his mid-40s. Who knows? Maybe Garoppolo figures out his online persona game. The Patriots today learned that that a succession plan is no shape to be implemented right now. Lots of kinks to work out.
If there is a silver lining to this unauthorized farewell post, it’s that it may be the final nail in the coffin for Bill Belichick’s incredibly tired bit of pretending not to know the names of social media sites. It’s all fun and games until your future franchise quarterback sends shockwaves through the organization by prematurely bidding farewell on Instagram. At that point, one has to acknowledge that the existence of the platform isn’t entirely meaningless. Even Belichick might be bothered to actually say the proper name in lieu of his least funny and most intellectually dishonest go-to joke.
Instagram security begins at the top and when your coach calls it InstantFace or FaceGram, that suggests a blase attitude toward the whole thing. Now, I realize no one is as passionate about Belichick’s social media jokes as I am, so forgive the overreach. Just very excited this could be the end of it all.